


Boxed In

by KageSora



Series: Adrien is Not a Cat [4]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Gen, cat behavior, somebody take the cat son away from me before i kill him with embarrassment, we're building towards something
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 18:43:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5939161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KageSora/pseuds/KageSora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adrien Agreste is a people, not a cat.  Except that he totally behaves like a cat.  And when he needs a little time to recharge after being up late too many nights in a row, he finds the purrfect place for a cat-nap.  Too bad Marinette doesn’t quite agree with that assessment!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boxed In

**Author's Note:**

> This ended up getting a bit away from me, oops. And yes, we're definitely building towards something. Not entirely sure what, but don't worry--no matter what it is I'll keep posting these ridiculous things as long as I have ideas for them. I also reference an idea for a "forum battle au" I had--don't worry, that post (actualaster.tumblr.com/post/138726365012/forum-battles-au) isn't something you need to have seen for this.

 

Adrien Agreste was tired.  Well, that would be an understatement.  He was _exhausted_.  Late nights were the norm for him, but this had gotten out of hand.  He would patrol with his Lady as Chat Noir, which was usual.  He’d get home and any homework he had to finish he would take care of.  Again, nothing out of the ordinary there.  But he’d been having trouble sleeping of late, up late worrying about a certain problem of his.

That problem being how many more times can he accidentally make a fool of himself in public before somebody realized he wasn’t exactly behaving like a people but instead like a cat.  On what was becoming a disturbingly regular basis.

Plagg, of course, was no help.  The Kwami just laughed gleefully as he told Adrien the kid was one of the ones that really took to the cat-side that came with the suit.

His best friend Nino was concerned for him, worried that the stress of his busy life was finally causing him to have some kind of breakdown.  Alya was just baffled.  And he didn’t know about Marinette--he could barely look her in the eye these days because he seems to always be the least people-like around her.

All his worries would come to the forefront of his thoughts in the dead of the night, when the room was silent except for Plagg’s snores, when the world was dark around him.  With nothing to do to distract himself, he would worry and fret and wonder how long before he slipped up too badly to conceal.

He was even more ashamed of how he’d taken to distracting himself.  He’d first tried to think about Ladybug, of course.  Stalking the Ladyblog and the new forums that Alya had decided to add so people could share information and theories.  (He, of course, decided to pick “model_bug” as his username, being a model and a Ladybug fan of the highest order.)

The downside, of course, being that there wasn’t as much activity at such a late hour since most of the users were local rather than international.  He’d check, usually leave a few heated posts directed at the user “purrfectkitty” who simply could _not_  understand that Ladybug was the best and seemed hell-bent on praising Chat Noir to the heavens.  Why, he had no idea--but clearly they didn’t know what they were talking about.  He couldn’t even begin to compare to how purrfect his Lady was, after all.

Still, that was about all he could do.  Occasionally his mortal enemy would be online and they’d go at it (he’d overheard Alya talking one day about the mods having a betting pool related to the two of them).  But when all was said and done, he was the one still online later and there was really only so many times that he could go over content he’d already seen before he needed a different distraction.

He’d tried watching anime, watching movies, gaming, reading, anything he could think of.  It didn’t really work, he’d find his thoughts circling back to his problem, and it would keep him from finding sleep.

Marinette, bless and curse her, had sent him a few gifts as jokes to try and lighten his mood once in a while if she noticed he was too stressed.  He didn’t know how she could tell, considering he avoided her these days because he couldn’t face her knowing how he’d behaved around here three different times now.  And those were just the big ones--there were other, little times when she’d caught him with a little bit of a cat in his way of doing things.

One of these she’d sent him after he’d run out of the craft store after getting tangled in some yarn.  It was the very bundle of yarn he’d been caught playing with.

And, to his everlasting embarrassment, he’d found that rolling the ball across the floor and playing with it would drive all thoughts from his mind.  It seemed he had to give in to his inner kitty to keep his human brain from focusing on it.

Plagg had found it utterly hilarious that he’d wake up to find Adrien curled up on the floor, or draped in a weird position somewhere covered in yarn.  More than once the Kwami had needed to help him get untangled before he could get up for the day.

Adrien was mortified by it, but if it was the only way he could get his brain to shut off long enough to fall asleep...  It didn’t hurt that the energy he put into playing with the yarn would wear him out as well.

And so it was that Adrien was getting more and more tired as the days went by, his stylists for his photo shoots getting aggravated at the need for so much makeup to cover the growing circles under his eyes.

He did his best to hide it, though, but really there was only so much that he could do when he could barely keep a yawn down every few minutes.

And that was how he found himself nodding off in Marinette’s room, the two of them working on a school project together.  He was half glad and half horrified to be paired with the girl.  She teased him lightly, but she never seemed to judge him for his behavior, playing along with his stuttered excuses of just being under a lot of stress.  Or maybe she really believed him.  Something in her eyes made him think otherwise, though.  But she seemed to know better than to push it.

It was amazing, really.  He had no idea how she could manage it.  She seemed to know just how far she could get with teasing him about his behavior without going overboard.  Oh, sure, he was embarrassed by any of it but it wasn’t so bad if it was just lightly done or a silly little gift now and again.

She’d become much more comfortable with him of late.  They’d spent more time together, her insisting on it to try and help him after the pet store incident.  It was...  Well, he had to admit it was nice.  She cared--she honestly cared about him.  Not just as Adrien-the-model, but as Adrien-the-boy.

He started a little at her touch, looking up into her concerned eyes as she woke him from his half-doze.

“Adrien, are you okay?”

“Y-y-y-yeaaaah...”  He managed through a yawn.  “’m jus’ tired...”

Marinette rolled her eyes at him, and he supposed it was because he was stating the extremely obvious.

“Do you want to call it a day on the project?  Go home and get some rest?”

He shook his head.  “No... I’m fine, we should get this done...”

She gave him a concerned look, but just sighed and got up, heading to the exit of her room.  “I’ll get us some snacks, then.  Maybe that’ll help you!”

He nodded absently, glancing around the room as she left.  It was a nice room in general, he thought. Lots of pink, but it suited her.  And of course all the sewing supplies and sketching materials and other tools of the trade for a budding designer.

Adrien got up and stretched, yawning again, and paced around the room a bit to try and wake himself up.  He paused, staring at something with a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that he tried very, very hard to ignore.

There was a box on the floor, with various fabrics in it.  And, for some reason, it looked like the most appealing place to curl up.

_Adrien Agreste, you are a **people**  not a cat!  You’ve been over this!  No curling up in a box!  Mari would kill you for wrinkling her fabric, too!_

He turned away resolutely, determined not to think about it.  But the box called to him.  He couldn’t resist, and soon found himself staring down at it.  But that was not something he would give in to.  He would _not_  touch the box at all.

Except he was yawning again, and found himself down on all fours, peering into it.  He reached a hand in, feeling the softness of the fabric, and a faint purr escaped him.  He clapped his hands to his mouth, eyes wide, but the damage was done.

The fabric was so soft and inviting...

He climbed into the box, shuffling a bit to half bury himself in the fabric, and curled up drifting off to sleep.

* * *

When Marinette entered her room, she was confused.  Adrien was nowhere to be seen!  She carefully set the tray with sweets and drinks on the desk, looking around.  Her brow furrowed as she noticed the box of fabrics was disturbed--a few were flopping out.

She carefully approached it, staring down at the strange sight before her.  There he was, curled up and sleeping, half-covered in material for her various projects.  Material that she needed not wrinkled.  She frowned.

And yet...  He looked so peaceful.  He shifted in his sleep, a soft rumble escaping him as he shifted his hands on the fabric.  Marinette could only stare as he sleep-kneaded the side of the box.

_...He...  He really is acting like a cat so much.  What is going on with him?  Why?  Is...  Is he okay...?_

She reluctantly pulled away, though.  He was just so tired these days.  She’d let him sleep.  She could work more on their project alone for a bit. 

* * *

Adrien drifted slowly back to awareness, yawning and snuggling deeper into the soft material around him.  A happy rumble built in his chest, slowly escaping.  He wasn’t even really aware of it.

A certain dark-haired girl, however, was very aware of it.  She started, looking over at the box, surprised.

Marinette carefully walked over, kneeling beside it, and saw Adrien shifting a little, eyes open just a tiny bit.

“Adrien...?

The blond rumbled a deeper purr, smiling, and blinked up at her.  It took him a moment to wake up, to grasp exactly what had happened.

He was up like he’d been struck with a bolt of lightning, squeaking in the most undignified way, knocking the box over and tumbling to the floor wrapped in fabric.  His face could give Ladybug’s suite a run for it’s money, honestly.

Marinette giggled, gently helping untangle her classmate and setting the fabric carefully back in the box, smoothing it out.

Adrien refused to look at her as he stammered apologies out, and suddenly realized it was dark out.

“O-oh God...  What time...?”

Marinette carefully put a hand on his shoulder.  “Hey, it’s okay.  I told my parents were were making really good progress on the project.  I...  You’ve just been so tired, I, um, didn’t...  Want to wake you up.”

“I’m sorry, Mari, I...  I don’t know what...  Why I...”

She smiled a little as he trailed off.  “It’s okay, Adrien.  But maybe you should get some sleep?  Get home and sleep in an actual bed?”

He nodded weakly, letting her help him get up.  He really couldn’t handle this.  This is beyond ridiculous.  He was going to have to grill Plagg to find a way to make this stop.  He couldn’t just...  Be a cat in front of people!  It was embarrassing enough in the privacy of his own room!  But with other people!?  No, and no, and no again, a thousand times no.

He managed to get himself out of the bakery without making a complete ass of himself, he thought, though Sabine and Tom seemed to exchange knowing smiles at his flushed face and Marinette’s close proximity to him.  He didn’t even want to know what they were thinking.

He finally managed to get himself home, having decided to transform and run back across the rooftops of Paris, the chill of the wind rushing past him helping to clear his head.

He tried to question Plagg when he got back after feeding the Kwami, but Plagg refused.  When Adrien had also refused to back down, the little spirit pulled a dirty, dirty move.

He looked Adrien in the eye, and pushed the ball of yarn off the desk.

Adrien couldn’t help himself, he was on it in an instant, interrogating his Kwami forgotten.


End file.
